Alcaraz into the quarterfinals of the Rio Open

Alcaraz lost the first set of this tournament with a 5-7 loss in the tie-break series. But the Spaniard returned in time to win the following two sets. A match where both had problems with the serve. Alcaraz only had a 60 per cent one-to-one serve rate in the first set, losing all four face-to-face break-points. On the other side of the net, Fognini also served only one in the field 63% and lost four serve games out of 11 break-points that had to be saved.

The difference between the two players is that Alcaraz regained his serve in the next two sets, and Fognini continued to lose serve games. The veteran Italian player faced a total of 17 break-points in this match and lost eight points. He only won the catch game once in the last two sets, before putting down the final racket.

Alcaraz faces a great opportunity to defend 500 points at the Rio Open when only facing non-seeded opponent Dusan Lajovic in the quarterfinals. The highest seed after Alcaraz remaining after the second round is Cameron Norrie. The British tennis player just lost to Alcaraz in the final of the Argentina Open last week.

Alcaraz will level the score with world number one Novak Djokovic if he holds the Rio Open title. At that time, the two players had 6,980 points together, but Djokovic was still number one thanks to more points than Alcaraz in major events and participating in fewer tournaments in the past year. Nole earned 5,820 points from the Grand Slam, Masters 1000 and ATP Finals, while Alcaraz's figure was 5,090.

The number one position will therefore be determined next week, when Alcaraz attends the Mexican Open, and Djokovic participates in the Dubai Championship. Alcaraz did not have to defend points in this ATP 500 tournament, and Djokovic defended 90 points because last year reached the quarterfinals.